***
Jim handed Cobb the rabbits on sticks, which he propped against the crossbar of the open fire. The days had fallen into a pattern, Jim shot the rabbits and skinned them and then gave them to Cobb, who did his bit by cooking them.
Each day they had slowly worked their way through the forest in a seemingly random pattern until today they were sitting on a bluff, overlooking the castle. Jim was sketching on a drawing pad, as Cobb cooked the rabbits.
‘Must we have rabbit again?’ asked Cobb.
‘Well,’ said Jim, ‘we could have squirrel but you’d have to be careful eating squirrels… they may contain nuts.’
In the trees above them, Fell watched them silently from where he was perched on a branch. But Fell’s eyes were not the only ones watching the two men.
***
Adele and Zelda were sitting around her campfire talking when Fell suddenly swooped down between them.
‘What the …?’ exclaimed Adele, startled.
Fell circled around them to line himself up and came into land. He hit the floor and skidded across the clearing, frantically swooping his wings forward in an effort to stop himself. At the last minute Zelda stuck her boot out to stop him sliding into the fire.
‘What is wrong with you?’ she demanded angrily.
Fell stood there trembling and trying to catch his breath. ‘It … they … must … got to …’ he gasped. He spread his wings and bent forward, trying to catch his breath.
‘What is it?’ said Zelda.
‘Her friends,’ he said pointing at Zelda with his wing, ‘… danger … werewolves watching them … going to attack soon,’ he managed to jabber out, then collapsed onto his back.
‘Where are they?’ asked Adele.
Fell waved one wing weakly in the direction of the hills. ‘Up … woodsman’s trail … peak … overlooking castle.’
‘How far is that?’ asked Adele.
‘About half a kilometre as the crow-’
‘Ahem!’ Fell cleared his throat loudly and looked at Zelda sternly.
‘… as the Raven flies,’ Zelda corrected herself.
‘What can we do?’ asked Adele.
‘I’ll gather the men; we will ride out and try and save them. You stay here.’ She gathered her skirts and ran to the other campfire yelling loudly to the men to saddle up the horses and gather their weapons. Within minutes they were saddled and ready to go. With one last look at Adele, Zelda rode off at the head of her band of gypsies.
Adele went over to the cauldron and began scrying.
***
Cobb cooked the rabbits while Jim continued drawing. Cobb also studied the castle. It was built between two cliffs, on one side was the town and the other was a mountain that allowed no rear access to the castle. What bothered Cobb though was the fact that the castle straddled the ravine, the builders had used the two adjacent cliffs as the outer walls and simply filled in the bit in the middle and then built the superstructure on top of that. That might make things tricky, he thought.
Up until now, Cobb had reasoned that if they got into trouble on this adventure, he could simply grab Jim and jump away to a parallel Universe, move away from where the danger was and then return once they had reached a place of safety. There was a problem though, he now saw. In the past, whenever he had jumped, he had always gone to the same geographical location that he had left from. If he was in the street, he ended up in the street. If he was in a house, he ended up in a house, assuming that a house had been built in that other Universe. There was the problem.
What if they were in the castle and it was necessary to jump to another Universe. Supposing there were no castle in that other Universe? They could find themselves hundreds of feet in the air with nowhere to go but down. He could try jumping back but by then they might not match any level of the castle and instead reappear inside the stone walls. That was just too hideous to think about. There was no option, no matter what trouble they were in, once they were inside the castle he couldn’t risk trying to jump them out of there except as a very last resort. Whatever danger they were in, they would just have to stay and face it.
‘How hard do you think it will be to break into the castle?’ he asked Jim.
‘It’ll be a breeze.’
‘Oh, right!’ said Cobb. ‘We’ve only got to get into the castle, get past a couple of dozen guards and a werewolf, steal the Seal, escape and then get out of the country without being caught. What could possibly go wrong?’
‘Oh relax,’ said Jim. ‘I do this sort of thing all the time, remember.’
‘Are you always this optimistic?’
‘It’s my philosophy of life, make the best of things. What I always say is, “When you’re being run out of town … try and get to the front of the crowd and make it look like you’re leading the parade!” ’
Cobb watched Jim making sketches of the castle on his drawing pad. ‘I like your drawings,’ he said. ‘Are you planning on displaying them when we get back?’
‘They’re plans, you idiot. They’re so can I figure out the best way of getting into the castle. I can show them to Hans Free and get his advice.’
‘How does he know how to get into the castle?’ asked Cobb.
‘He worked there all his life until the werewolves took over.’
‘How do you know that? Come to that, how do you know him?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Look Jim, I’m having real problems with you playing your cards so close to your chest, if you don’t start-’
‘Quiet,’ Jim growled, picking up his gun.
Cobb picked up the branch with the rabbits on and held it defensively in front of him. ‘You don’t respond well to criticism, do you?’ he said anxiously.
‘Cobb, listen carefully ... there is something in the bushes over there, watching us. And over there,’ he indicated the directions with his eyes as he spoke.
‘I thought I could smell something like wet dog.’
Jim reached into his backpack and took out a pack of cartridges. He put the cartridges on the ground between them and then he put the drawing pad into the backpack, fastened it securely and slung it on his back. He split the cardboard pack open, spilling the cartridges onto the ground. ‘Fill your pockets,’ he instructed Cobb, whilst doing the same himself.
Cobb lifted a cartridge with one hand and examined it, while filling his pockets with the other hand.
The other shells he had used during the past few days had been neat, shiny, nickel-plated bullets. These ones were ugly, lead ones with a deep crosses filed into them.
‘In the absence of silver, I opted for these Dum-Dum bullets,’ said Jim.
(Dum-Dum bullets were the nickname for bullets that had been modified to split open on impact. Although being hit with a bullet from a high-powered rifle was bad enough, there was a good chance that the bullet would go straight through you.
Dum-Dum’s were doctored so that when the bullet hit you it spread, so that as it travelled through you, it got larger and larger inside your body, creating more damage than an ordinary bullet would. They had been banned internationally from use in warfare.)
Cobb had come across Dum-Dum bullets before; he had even seen somebody shot with them. They left very big, very nasty holes in a person. But even they didn’t have the power to stop a werewolf.
‘This won’t stop them you know,’ he told Jim.
‘I know but it will slow them down while we run for it. Remember that one you took down with a fire axe in his chest, in Londum, well he went down for a few minutes didn’t he?’ I’m hoping these will have the same effect.’
They kept talking quietly between themselves as if they were unaware of their danger, while they prepared themselves.
‘Okay here’s what we do,’ said Jim, softly. ‘We walk off casually for as far as we can get, then we run. We’ve only got single shot rifles so when they come for us; you run ahead a short way then stop, while I fire on them. I run past you, loading
while I run, you fire and then run past me, loading your gun while you do. Always take the one nearest to you. If we can keep up a sustained rate of fire we may hold them back until we can get to safety. Right, let’s go!’
They got to their feet and casually strolled off in the direction of the town. They had only gone a few hundred yards when they heard a deep growl.
Jim whirled around and dropped to one knee. ‘Okay this is it! Go! He waited until the two werewolves burst through the bushes towards them, picked his target carefully and fired. The nearest werewolf took the bullet high in the chest and crashed backwards to the forest floor.
Jim turned and ran after Cobb. Judging him to be far enough, he called for him to stop. Cobb dutifully stopped and turned towards the pursuing werewolves. Jim loaded his rifle as he ran past Cobb who held his fire as long as he could and put down the next werewolf with a headshot. Fortunately for Jim, Cobb had been trained to shoot in the Metropolitan Police and could hold his own against Jim in the shooting stakes. As he fired however, he saw the one that Jim had downed, rise to his feet, apparently unharmed and continue their pursuit.
They carried on like this, running, stopping and firing, then running again. Leap frogging each other, allowing them to keep up a sustained rate of fire, standard military tactics. On and on they ran and fought until Cobb was reaching the limit of his strength. Jim, although younger then Cobb, was beginning to show the strain as well, as his shots became more erratic. Even though he always hit the target, sometime he was just hitting them in the arm or the leg.
‘I’m running out of bullets,’ panted Cobb as he ran past Jim.
‘Don’t worry, not far now,’ came the gasped reply.
Not far to where? wondered Cobb. We’re still miles from the town.
His question was answered a few minutes later as they broke through into the clearing at the head of the hill, where the woodsmen had piled their logs and more importantly … left their sledge.
Jim knelt down next to Cobb who was covering their retreat. ‘Right, the next time we see them, we put them both down. That will give us a minute or two to get that thing moving,’ he nodded towards the sledge. ‘Ready … ‘ he waited until both werewolves came into view and then said, ‘Fire!’ Their rifles rang out in unison; both werewolves fell to the floor, wounded by bullets to their heads. The werewolves screamed in agony as the soft nosed bullets tore through their heads, smashing and tearing as they went.
Before they had even hit the floor, Jim had run to the sled and put his shoulder to it. It looked as if it hadn’t moved for a couple of days and had settled into the snow but Cobb joined him and together they struggled to make it move.
Their combined effort managed to force it out of its rut and get it moving to the point where the hill sloped away but it was taking too long, the werewolves would be on them any minute. He called for Cobb to jump on to it and before he followed suit he looked behind him, a long, clawed arm was descending on him. He threw himself onto the sledge as it began to slide down the hill, as the claws missed him by inches and raked down the length of the sledge.
‘Can you steer this thing?’ asked Cobb, as it picked up speed and shot away down the slope.
‘No, just lean when I tell you to.’
The sledge skidded down the icy slope, gathering speed. It followed the well-worn track that it slid up and down every day, in fact it had worn it into a kind of Cresta run that channelled and directed the sledge into a particular path down the hill. Jim didn’t even have to control it, it went on like a racehorse that has been round the same track all its life and knows its every bump and hollow.
It looked at first as if they were going to outpace the two werewolves but Jim could soon see them making ground. They had dropped to all fours and were galloping along behind them, getting closer and closer.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Cobb, ‘throw snowballs?’
Cobb and Jim lay flat on the sledge, clinging grimly to the front rail, knowing what fate would befall them if it crashed or they fell off it. Cobb realised that he may have to do something he hadn’t wanted to do, jump himself and Jim to a parallel Universe.
He hadn’t wanted to let Jim know about his little ‘talent’ but if the werewolves caught the sled then they were gonners, he didn’t really have much choice. And to add to the problem they were travelling at quite a speed now. He had never jumped while moving fast before, he could only hope that it was also snow covered on the other side otherwise it could be painful when they landed … unless he could take the sledge with them. He had never tried taking something as big as this sledge with him before and he wasn’t sure he could do it but if the beasts reached the sledge, he would have to do it and risk the consequences.
He was just reaching out to grab Jim’s arm in readiness when Jim raised his head up to look ahead, ‘Look, there’s a sidetrack up ahead; maybe we can give them the slip. When I say lean you- DUCK!’ He threw himself flat on the sledge, pulling Cobb down with him as a volley of rifle fire rang out. The bullets flew over their heads and into the oncoming werewolves.
Cobb craned his neck to view the situation. ‘Why are gypsies shooting at us?’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s not us, it’s them,’ Jim pointing back to the rear of the sledge. ‘They’re shooting at the werewolves!’ They looked blankly into each other’s eyes and then back at the gypsies as they tried to fathom this new development. They saw a line of gypsies with rifles raised ahead of them; they would be on them in a moment, and in their centre stood a single woman.
The sledge drew level with the gypsies and as they passed through the middle of them, the woman stepped forward and raised her arms. ‘THIS FOREST AND EVERYTHING IN IT, IS UNDER MY PROTECTION. BEGONE!’ she shouted to the werewolves and then she clapped her hands.
The world and everything in it suddenly went WHITE!! It was like having the sun explode in your face. There was no sound, just the awful, eyeball searing, brightness. Cobb and Jim who were behind it were still both half blinded, but the worst hit were the werewolves. You could hear them as they ran away blindly into the forest, barking and whimpering in fright. Even Adele who was several miles away and only watching remotely through the scrying bowl, covered her eyes and fell back in pain. The gypsies however, had obviously been pre-warned as they had knelt down and covered their eyes.
Their vision slowly clearing, Jim and Cobb raced on down the slope. They had no idea who that woman was but she had sure saved their hides. Now all they had to do was to stop the sledge and make sure they still had a hide worth saving. Unfortunately, what with being half blinded and having no proper controls on the sledge, that wasn’t going to be that easy.
It careened on, with a mind of its own. Jim strained his eyes to break through the brilliant white after image that was burnt onto his eyes and finally managed to make out … snow! Oh that’s great, he thought, white everywhere.
‘Cobb, I think we are coming up to a bend in the path, this is where we want to get off. There’s a snowfield up ahead, we’ll aim for that. Now when I tell you … lean.’
They waited until the sledge began to go into the turn, as the trail broke away to the right. On Jim’s command they leaned to the left, bringing the right runner up and forcing them up and over the lip of the well-worn groove they were in, and forcing them out into the deep, unmarked, snow field. They ploughed through the snow (snow plough, geddit?) until they finally came to a sudden stop as they hit a rock, throwing them both into the deep, cushioning drifts.
Cobb stood up, shook the snow off himself and bent over, putting his hands on his knees, panting for breath. ‘What’s the matter Cobb?’ asked Jim. ‘Not getting too old for this, are you?’
‘I’d planned on being dead by now. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself,’ replied Cobb.
‘Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men.’
‘Never mind that, I want to know if the best laid plans of b
urglars and thieves are going to get us out of this town in one piece.’
‘Trust me … I’m a doctor,’ replied Jim.
Cobb looked dubiously at Jim and with a sigh started trudging his way back to town. ‘So what’s next on the plan?’ he asked. ‘Are you going back to Die Schwartze Pumpernickel tonight to try and see Hans? Maybe he can tell us something useful about these werewolves.’
‘Yes,’ replied Jim. ‘Tonight I’m going to see a man about a dog.’
***
After their evening meal, Cobb went back to his room while Jim headed off to Die Schwartze Pumpernickel. Everyone remembered him fondly and welcomed him back to the inn. He ordered a round of drinks for everybody.
He laid a bank note on the counter to pay for the drinks. Then he put another couple of notes down beside it. ‘Hans Free?’ he asked.
The barman nodded to a door in the corner of the room. ‘Go down that corridor, second door on the left.’
Jim laid out another couple of notes and swigged his drink down. ‘Give me a bottle of whatever he drinks and two glasses, please.’
The barman looked behind the bar, selected a bottle of peach brandy and placed it in front of Jim along with two glasses. He took these and headed for the door. He went through the door and checked the corridor carefully. It looked deserted so he made his way quietly and slowly to the second door on the left. He opened the door but did not make the mistake of walking in until he had checked that no one was standing either side of the doorway.
An old man sat at a table in the room. Jim looked around and established that he was the only occupant beside himself. He stepped up to the table and put down the bottle and glasses. The man watched him wordlessly as Jim sat down facing the man. He poured drink into the two glasses and pushed one towards him. ‘Hans Free?’ he asked.
‘Who wants to know?’
‘My name is Jim Darby. A mutual friend said I should look you up.’
‘I hardly think that we have any mutual friends, Albion man.’
The Londum Omnibus Volume One (The Londum Series Book 4) Page 40